Finally Like Summertime

I love Strava's Flyby animation. This is the end of this morning's WeMoRi.

Looks like the 50s are finally gone from the long-range forecast and soon enough I'll be lugging around two full water bottles instead of one. I might even drink most of the water. It's such a relief to get out of bed in the morning and not have to have the internal debate over base layers and arm-warmers and gloves and vests and socks. Just grab a pair of shorts and a jersey and go. Of course, it's not really hot yet, and the early morning rides right now start out cool and comfortable. Hope it lasts a little longer.

With nice weather and little wind, there were a lot of survivors at the end of the Saturday Giro Ride last week.

So the training rides for the past week or so have been pretty routine. The weather has been quite nice, there are more and more riders on the road, and a nice string of area races are rapidly approaching. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, they recently began tearing up the levee bike path where it goes around the green "pump to the lake" pipes. That little bypass was a pretty spectacular engineering fiasco (assuming there was actually any engineering involved at all, which is questionable). They created it in record time less maybe a year and a half ago and almost immediately it began to crumble under the weight of the police SUVs and whatever other "official" vehicles were driving up and down the path. Eventually they came and did some asphalt patchwork, which held up for practically no time at all.

About to tear up the asphalt and try again.

By spring there was a narrow 6" line that we'd navigate, in the dark, to avoid the holes and mud and broken asphalt. It was down to about 3" a week ago when we finally saw some signs that they were preparing to fix it, again. A couple of days ago they closed it off and completely removed the road surface. We can only hope that they think this through this time and put something there that will hold up. In the meantime it's not too difficult to drop down to River Road and then climb back up on the existing access roads, so it could be worse. The real question is whether the work will take two weeks or six months.

Last weekend I rode both the Saturday and Sunday Giro Rides. It's Jazz Fest season around here, so there are always a few people who don't show up or leave early. Priorities, you know. The group was a good size both days anyway, and I thought that Saturday's ride was particularly fast. We were back onto Lakeshore Drive before 9 am, so maybe five to ten minutes earlier than average. Sunday also had its moments, but like Saturday the wind was light so it was easy for people to stay with the group even when the pace heated up.

Lots of people, not a lot of staff.

Candy is leaving for a conference in New York on Friday morning and so yesterday she decided to go down to the local DMV to get her "Real ID" driver's license since hers expires about now. I figured I'd go with her and get mine at the same time. Mine doesn't expire until November, so this would just basically swap my existing license for the new version until I renew for real later in the year. So we collected up the required documentation - social security cards, birth certificates, two bills showing your name and home address, etc., and headed over there from work around 11:30 or so. There were over 100 people sitting in the room full of plastic chairs -- waiting. Of the 25 desks lining the periphery of the room, only three or four were staffed. Two long hours later, they finally called her number, followed immediately by mine. Well, they wouldn't give her the license because her social security card, which I would estimate to be 50-60 years old, had been laminated. Really? Luckily she has a valid passport, because she wouldn't be able to get on the airplane in New York without it. My own transaction went fine and I had a freshly minted driver's license with the little star in the corner within ten minutes.

This year we lost a couple of LAMBRA races, and I had been worried about the big mid-summer lull in the season, but fortunately the Semi-tough guys stepped up and will be putting on a 4-race weekday series on the Lakefront. Also, Dustin and 4D will be putting on a 3-criterium weekend in July right over in Hammond on a fairly non-technical course in the local park. Hopefully I'll be able to make most of those. In the meantime, though, I'm focused on putting on the Time Trial Championships this coming Sunday, and then the Tour de Louisiane a few weeks later. After that, we have the Vuelta over in Alexandria that is just a criterium this year, followed by the Feliciana Road Race the following weekend. There's supposed to be a road race in Jackson the next weekend but I haven't seen any details on that one yet.  It looks like the TT is in good shape. The weather forecast is good, a number of people have volunteered to help, and Eddie is providing enough sponsorship cash to pay for most of the police detail. I'll be spending some time Friday night and Saturday morning setting up the start list and preparing event waivers and bib numbers, and then once again packing a ton of stuff into the Volvo early Sunday morning for the short trip over to the Swamp Tour place near LaPlace. Hoping everything goes smoothly despite not having Robin or Mignon on hand this year.